1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to analysis of semiconductor test data, and more particularly to a semiconductor test data analysis system, which, by visually rendering analysis operations such as analysis conditions and analysis procedures with respect to test data, facilitates the setting or changing of analysis operations by the user.
2. Related Art
In analysis operations performed using a dedicated semiconductor analysis software, such as IDS Software Systems' dataPOWER®, analysis results are obtained by loading and analyzing test data, in accordance with commands in such a software. This type of analysis operation can be performed any number of times, with varied analysis conditions or procedures. Because the analysis conditions or procedures are usually stored in a file, it is possible for a user to perform batch processing by specifying a data file. By executing batch processing, it is not necessary for the user to repeatedly input the analysis conditions or procedure for each set of test data to be analyzed.
In the same manner as the above-noted prior art, in general-purpose spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel®, it is possible to execute loading of test data, analysis conditions, and analysis procedures related to the loaded test data, in accordance with software commands, thereby obtaining results of the analysis. Such software has a function which automatically saves analysis conditions and procedures executed by a user from a display apparatus. Using such software to execute batch processing, it is possible for a user to obtain further information regarding test data analysis, based on automatically stored analysis conditions and procedures.
Because of the difficulty of predicting test data at the initial stage of semiconductor manufacturing development, trial-and-error analysis is used to determine the optimal analysis conditions or procedures. In analysis operations such as this, it is often desirable to analyze results obtained from previous analysis operations or to execute a further analysis operation based on results obtained by a previous analysis operation.
In conventional analysis operations, however, no management is done of the history of analysis operations, such as the analysis conditions or procedures of test data executed by software. For this reason, unless the user purposefully saves intermediately obtained analysis results of an analysis operation, it is generally difficult to re-acquire results obtained midway during an analysis operation or to re-acquire data obtained from a previous analysis operation. It is therefore generally not easy to perform further trial-and-error analysis of data based on intermediate analysis results or based data obtained by a previous analysis operation.
At a late stage in semiconductor manufacturing development, because the obtained test data can be predicted quite well, the analysis conditions and procedures required to analyze this data may virtually be determined. The batch processing of analysis operations is automated using these analysis conditions and procedures. In conventional analysis operations using the dedicated analysis software for semiconductor test data, it is necessary for a user to input batch processing commands conforming to a coding method of the particular software used in the analysis, meaning that the user needed to understand the coding method called for by the analysis software in generating the commands for batch processing. It is therefore not easy for the user to generate batch processing commands.
In trial-and-error analysis of semiconductor test data, analysis operations are frequently performed with a partial change in the analysis conditions or analysis procedure. For this reason, there is a need in batch processing for the user to be able to easily make partial changes to the analysis conditions or analysis procedure. In analysis operations of the past using the dedicated analysis software such as described above, however, it is necessary for the user to code batch programming in conformance with a coding method called for by the particular software used in the batch processing, so that execution of batch processing therefore requires specialized knowledge regarding batch processing coding. It is therefore not easy for a user to make partial changes to analysis conditions or analysis procedures.
It is possible with general-purpose spreadsheet software to perform automatic recording of analysis conditions and procedures in analysis operations. Even with this type of software, however, it is not possible to obtain or to manage test data analysis results or data obtained midway in the execution of automatically recorded analysis conditions or analysis procedures. In trial-and-error analysis, when analysis results or analysis data obtained midway in an analysis operation are to be accessed, it is necessary for the user to intentionally save the analysis results or data obtained during in an analysis operation. It is further necessary for the user to code the automatically recorded analysis conditions or procedures in accordance with the method specifically called for by the software. It was therefore not easy for a user to make a partial change in the automatically recorded analysis conditions or procedures.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor test data analysis system in which it is possible to automatically record and easily access analysis conditions or an analysis procedure executed by an analysis operation, and further in which it is possible to easily change the settings of analysis conditions, the settings of analysis procedures, or the settings of batch processing and re-execute the analysis with the changed conditions or settings.